


Perfunctory

by deathwailart



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Body Horror, Disturbing Themes, Female Character of Color, Gen, Renegade Commander Shepard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-05
Updated: 2014-08-05
Packaged: 2018-02-11 22:37:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2085768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are days when she feels as though she's moving through life like she's not really there.  Fits in with <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1974867">Experiment</a> and <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2085753">Expose</a></p>
<p>Written for the 30 day drabble challenge: perfunctory</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perfunctory

There are days when she feels as though she's moving through life like she's not really there. As though this isn't her body and she's merely a spectator even though those sort of thoughts aren't encouraged by Chakwas who keeps checking on her scars and asking if she's ever thought of meditating. It'd make her laugh but nothing works the way it did. She can scrub and scrub but the sensation that there's something clinging to her skin won't wash away, some sort of film because nothing registers the way it should. She's harder, better, faster, stronger, on paper as facts and numbers she's perfect. Perfect like Miranda only Miranda isn't perfect either and if ever there was proof of that then it's Cassandra. Joker fortunately isn't planet side to see how much of a mess she's making of it, Liara is too overjoyed to hold her again even if that feels wrong, even if she wants to push her away and say no, I'm not right, I'm not me, I'm not the woman you found so fascinating.  
  
Although maybe letting Liara dissect her in the lab would get some answers. She might not even feel enough to need to be knocked out for it.  
  
She knows that Garrus doesn't think she's right because she sees the way he looks at her in the field. She's as efficient a fighter, even more than before because the world melts away with a sniper rifle in her hands. When Tali comes back she hesitates too because they know. They know and she's waiting for them to say something but the words never come but the silence is just another form of assent here. Once she was the soldier that humanity pinned all their hopes on, when she stood there in the uniform and believed in something so much bigger and brighter in herself, when she was the voice of reason and compassion. She didn't let him go cowboy cop and he was going back to C-Sec and sometimes she's not sure if she's just as bad (or worse) as the people he used to arrest.  
  
Sometimes she wonders if there's a chip in her brain. Or that the beacon and being so close to that Reaper did something to her. If this is how the husks feel on the inside but it's not like Benezia described, there's no part of her banging on the glass, it's just delayed, watching her raise her arm and shoot first when she used to calm the situation down when she could, when Hackett would praise her because her idea of doing the job was to go above and beyond. To put lives first whenever she could.  
  
It isn't exactly that she doesn't care – she does, she swings between terror and fury but never lets it show because she's the one in charge and she doesn't get to be a person, she has to be this resurrected hero saving the day again – but she's so damn tired and it's just easier this way. Put on her armour, let her visor light up, stare down the scope of her rifle and pick the target. So long as she gets the job done, so long as collectors and husks and whatever else gets in her way dies then it's okay. She's still there in the way that counts, someone can worry about the rest if they make it out alive.


End file.
